2 Ebola patients in Congo 'cured' with drugs, say doctors

Esperance Nabintu and her one-year-old son, Ebenezer Fataki, after the two had been declared cured of Ebola, in Goma, Congo Tuesday, August 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Justin Katumwa)

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Two Ebola patients who were treated with new drugs in the city of Goma in eastern Congo have been declared “cured” and returned to their home.

Top doctors fighting Ebola quickly used the case on Tuesday to press the message that people can recover from the potentially deadly disease if they seek proper care.

Ebola is dangerous but it is also curable with correct treatment, said Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research.

“Ebola kills quickly and Ebola heals quickly. That’s the message,” said Muyembe, at a press conference in Goma.

“These cases were detected very quickly. The husband was infected, he was at home for 10 days and his wife and son were infected,” said Muyembe.

“As soon as the response teams detected these cases, they brought them here to the treatment center. We gave them treatment that is effective and here in a short time both are cured.”

Muyembe said two new drugs “are now be used to treat Ebola patients because, according to the studies and the results we obtained in the lab, these are the two drugs that are effective.”

Muyembe and other scientists announced this week that preliminary results from two trials in Congo found two drugs — made by Regeneron and the U.S. National Institutes of Health — seem to be saving lives.